Water & Oceans

"While unusually poor returns of sockeye salmon plagued most other Alaskan waterways, state regulators are calling Bristol Bay "one of the bright spots" this season, with 42 million of the 50 million sockeye caught across the state coming from the watershed."

"Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued an executive order Thursday blocking offshore drilling, joining several other states trying to shield themselves from the Trump administration's plan to drill for oil and gas off the U.S. coast."

"Interior Department officials announced their approval Wednesday of a company’s plan to drill for oil six miles off the Alaskan coast in the shallow waters of the Beaufort Sea."

"An advocacy group is asking EPA to collect more data on lead in drinking water following the agency's continual delay in revamping its Lead and Copper Rule."

"The European parliament has overwhelmingly backed a wide-ranging ban on single-use plastics in an effort to tackle pollution in seas, fields and waterways."

"In the hours since Super Typhoon Yutu barreled through the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands on Thursday, those living in the region are already calling it the worst storm they have ever experienced."

"Five years ago, assigning wickedness to the purple urchin, a shellfish the size of a plum with quarter-inch spikes, would have been absurd. That was before the urchins mowed down Northern California’s kelp forests."

"Sea water encroaching on the Everglades will hamper decades of work by a government program to reverse manmade damage to the vast, fragile ecosystem at the tip of Florida, according to a new report published on Wednesday."

"Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are proposing to scale back the scope and cost of the Portland Harbor Superfund cleanup."